‘Veitch,’ Church said.
‘You’re not thinking of confronting him, are you?’ Tom interjected. ‘There’s only one of you this time.’
Church wavered. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Veitch is playing the long game,’ Tom pressed. ‘You should, too.’
‘That’s easily said. How do you walk away when you know something bad’s happening that you might be able to influence?’
‘Best stay away. You don’t want to be forced into facing him before you’re whole.’
‘If it is any help, there was another sighting of Spring-heeled Jack in the vicinity,’ Cole added. ‘If such a fearsome thing exists, it may well have been involved.’
‘Walk away, Jack,’ Tom insisted.
Church was torn, but before he could reach a decision he glimpsed a familiar figure through the crowd. It was fleeting, but Church was sure he had seen correctly. ‘Jerzy’s here,’ he said.
4
Veitch leaned against the chimney stack, examining his silver hand. The view across the rooftops had been spectacular, to St Paul’s and beyond, to the gleaming white manses of the West End. But now it was rapidly being obscured by the descending smog as thousands of fires pumped up greasy smoke from the cheap coal slack the poor shovelled into their grates.
Veitch clamped the mechanical fingers into a fist. ‘Not even a whole man any more.’
He slipped his other arm around Etain, who was sitting next to him. ‘Who’d ever have thought a dirty little urchin from South London would end up here? When I was at school, the careers wanker told me I wouldn’t amount to anything. Not smart enough to take my exams. I could train as a mechanic if I was lucky. No point having any hopes.’ He said the word bitterly. ‘Can you imagine telling a kid that? Basically saying, ‘‘Sorry, mate, you life’s over.’’ Wanker. All those nice middle-class kids, they have parents who tell them they can do anything. Then they’re set up, no boundaries. They just head off and do the best they can.’
He kicked a loose shingle, sending it slithering down the roof to pitch over the edge and shatter in the street far below.
‘Then I started having all these dreams. Not the kind of dreams you might have. Like drug trips. Movies in my head. Every night. Drove me mad. Everyone thought I was bleedin’ nuts.’ He unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the technicoloured tattoos dappling his torso. ‘Only way I could deal with them was to get them drawn up here. Turns out they weren’t dreams. They were my …’ He wrestled to find the right word. ‘Heritage. Who I was. Stuff that was going to happen.’ He traced his finger around the outline of a green dragon. ‘And then my life exploded from nothing into something. A Brother of Dragons. A Champion of Life.’ He laughed. ‘I hooked up with the others and we were going to change everything. Shavi, he was all right. Laura … bitch. And Ruth …’ He fell silent. ‘Sorry, darlin’, but she was something special. I loved her. I bloody loved her. And then that bastard Church came along and ruined it all. We were a team … they were the best friends I ever had. Or so I thought. I’d have done anything for them. We could have done anything. No boundaries. You get it? The sky was the bleedin’ limit. All thrown away. Me, tossed back on the scrapheap. Left for dead. I was dead … until I got a second chance. This time I’m using it right. I’m not going to let anybody screw me over again.’
He balanced on the pitch of the roof and stretched. The smog hung so densely all around that it felt as if night was coming in early.
‘You going to help me, darlin’? I can’t do this bit on my own.’ He held out his hand and Etain took it. Together they walked to the roof’s edge, and then over, vertically down the face of the building. Veitch directed Etain to a window through which candlelight glimmered. Veitch leaned back and smashed the glass with his boot, at the same time drawing his sword. Black fire danced around the blade.
Inside, a young man and woman cowered in one corner. They held each other’s hands, for strength; allies, not lovers. ‘Who are you?’ the man said defiantly. He tried to push the woman behind him for safety.
‘I’m your worst fucking nightmare, mate.’ Veitch lifted the sword and stepped towards them.
5
Church dashed through the halls of the Great Exhibition, pushing his way through the genteel crowds. He caught sight of what he thought was Jerzy in the Indian court and then again amongst the agricultural implements of the United States court. It was only ever a fleeting glimpse of white skin or a fixed grin, enough to identify the figure as the Mocker, yet rationally Church couldn’t understand how it could be him: there were no shrieks, no swooning women or angry, shocked men.
Eventually his pursuit led him to the Russian court. There was no sign of Jerzy amidst the malachite doors, vases and ornaments, but as Church searched amongst the browsers he saw something else that put him on edge: a rapid movement, a blur of what looked like brown seal-skin and a sinuous, muscular shape that was definitely not human. It was something he had seen before, near Carn Euny and on the way out of Eboracum.
Before he could investigate further, a hand closed on his sleeve. He looked into the face of a woman of about twenty years old, with heavy Eastern European features, brown hair and dark, penetrating eyes.
‘You are looking for your friend,’ she said in thickly accented English. ‘You will not find him here. He is with the Master now.’
‘I saw him.’
‘No, you did not.’
Church searched for a sign that she was more than she appeared. ‘What do you know?’
‘I know we all have masters who set us on a path to wisdom. My own Master is a Hindu man of imposing appearance who visited me many times when I was a child. I saw him this day and he directed me to you. Jack Churchill. The King Beyond the Water.’
‘And you are?’
‘Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. I was born in the Ukraine, but I am now a child of the world.’
‘So why did this master send you to me?’
‘Because you are at a fork in your life’s path,’ said the woman who would help launch the Victorian era’s occult revival with her Theosophical Society. ‘In the coming days, months, years, you can choose to go one way or another. I am to give you information to help you make your choice.’
Helena led Church away from the crowds to a quiet area under one of the wrought-iron staircases that led to the upper level.
‘The first thing you must understand is that the universe is built on a system of harmonious numbers,’ she said.
Five, Church thought.
‘Numbers that have specific meaning, specific powers. The universe is an ordered system that contains chaos. Order implies intelligence. Who created it? That is the question. Two is a powerful number, for it lies at the heart of everything. Wherever you look, there is duality. Night and day. Good and evil. Zoroastrianism, which is the root of Gnosticism, believed the world was a battleground for two beings: Ahura Mazda, the god of light, and life, and goodness; and Ahriman, the god of darkness, corruption and death.’
Her mention of Gnosticism triggered Church’s memory of John Dee talking about the same subject in his university rooms in Krakow. Coincidence? Or more of the patterns Helena was talking about?
‘You are meant to tell me about Gnosticism?’ he asked.
‘Gnosis means knowing through observation or experience.’
Another connection: Church recalled what Hal, the spirit in the Blue Fire, had said about not revealing what had happened because Church had to learn it for himself.